If you were trying to watch Rashean Mathis tackle Ray Rice in Monday’s Jaguars-Ravens game, you got to see ESPN clutter the game, as it always does, with mindless graphics and chatter. (Reuters)

Imagine being seated in PSL Stadium or DebtLife Stadium or whatever they now call it, when, throughout a close game, the stranger next to you keeps poking you, distracting you, only to tell you something stupid.

Would you call security or just mace the guy yourself?

Once, the only goal of every game production was to provide viewers the best seat in the house. Today, the technologically advanced, high-def plan is to present obstructed, cluttered views in “surround sound” — surrounded by words, words and more words, many of them in defiance of what we are allowed to see.

It now seems that every telecast is infested with guys, on both sides of us, poking us, distracting us, making us well aware of nonsense.

Monday night, the Jaguars were up 9-0 against the Ravens, 7:12 left, when ESPN interrupted its own program to bring us a “Monday Night Football Stat Alert.” “Stat Alert” appeared in red, to emphasize that it was an alert; that this was important, or ESPN wouldn’t have bothered us with it.

ESPN’s “Stat Alert” then showed the teams’ time of possession. Nurse!

This wasn’t an alert, it was an annoyance, another distraction presented by those who don’t understand the games they’re charged with presenting to a national audience.

Thirty seconds later, Mike Tirico threw it to sideline reporter Sal Paolantonio. At the same time, ESPN showed Baltimore safety and noted tough guy Ed Reed, who was injured two plays earlier, trotting back on the field.

“Ed Reed has a stinger in his shoulder,” Paolantonio reported as Reed was seen returning to the game. “His return to the game is questionable.”

All that in just 30 seconds!

Barron death ignored by Garden

Among the many failings of current Madison Square Garden is that the deaths of longtime, pre-Dolan employees are ignored, word isn’t passed, as if no legacy was earned, no recognition deserved. Those who gave their careers and souls to the Garden’s teams, operations, TV network and patrons may as well have worked for the Oakland Seals.

Arthur Barron, a Paramount executive who oversaw the Garden, died this week at 77. Barron’s foresight allowed MSG Network to purchase Yankees rights, helping turn it into a superb and highly valued, year-round regional sports network — until the Dolan regime gutted it.

Barron, unlike Jim Dolan, was an approachable man with a dry, countrified — he was from Iowa — devilish sense of humor. You could bust his chops, and he’d bust back. He was part of what made the Garden, during the late 1980s into the mid-1990s, a great place to be, the city’s fulcrum of fun.

But not a word from this Garden about Barron’s passing, as if he’d never set foot in the building.

And Buddy Hornacek suggests that in addition to shortening left field, the Mets should place a pond behind the wall, a pond called “Jason Bay.”

Know-it-all Mike again shows he knows nothing

As Maynard G. Krebs, used to say, “I’m not bad, just weak.”

Sorry, but I’m now drawn to Mike Francesa only to satisfy my lowest visceral needs, the way civilized people can’t turn away from hockey fights and fried food. With Francesa, the urge doesn’t last long — a few minutes a day is all it takes to fill the tank. I know, it’s a dirty job, but …

Francesa continues to serve as the most phenomenal reverse-clairvoyant known to both the normal and paranormal, with the spooky ability to turn a no-shot underdog into an easy winner simply by dismissing it as chanceless. If cats have nine lives, he’d tout the cat that has one.

His sage World Series claim that in Tony La Russa vs. Ron Washington there’s a major mismatch — La Russa’s the far superior manager — soon was followed by La Russa’s colossal bungling.

Francesa ridiculed reports that Navy might be joining the Big East as if those who reported it had fabricated the story because he, Master of the Universe, knows better. Bingo! Navy’s anticipated entry to the Big East is now common knowledge.

His “ultimate insider” report that he has heard “rumblings” that the Jets might switch running back Joe McKnight to defensive back smacked of his habit-formed, self-serving dishonesty, as that story had been reported long before. The last to know, he spoke as if he was the first.

Even Francesa’s parenthetical, casual comments are loaded with self-affliction and self-admiration. That CBS switched next week’s LSU-Alabama to prime time — easy, given that both are undefeated, ranked 1 and 2 — was a matter of CBS taking his “advice.”

Wednesday, a caller who said he was WFAN update man John Minko’s gym teacher ended with Francesa declaring that Minko’s, “A good man. He’s been with me for years.” Not, “We’ve worked together for years,” but, “He’s been with me for years,” as if Minko is his cleaning lady.

He casually and shamelessly mentions that he has the finest seats at concerts and ballgames, 3,500 square feet is an average-sized home, and he’s surrounded by famous and fabulously wealthy neighbors. Every day in every way he wants you know this: He’s better than you. Much, much better.

And every day he departs unaware that he has made a fool of himself, ready to do it again the next day.

No one escapes his exploitation and self-affliction. There was that says-it-all moment when he couldn’t simply say that his mother lives in Tampa, Fla. Instead, “I built my mother a home in Tampa.”

Just give him two, three minutes every day. That’s all you need to be reminded that he’s relentlessly and truly amazing.